Whether or not it was timed for Rahul Gandhi’s return from a >nearly two-month sabbatical , the huge rally in Delhi on Sunday against the land acquisition legislation seems to have primed the Congress for the role of a more active opposition. Although farmers’ groups and civil society organisations gave the protest its initial momentum, the Congress is now firmly at the centre of it all, >piling up pressure on the Narendra Modi government to drop some of the more contentious clauses in the legislation . What the government initially tried to sell as a more rational and practical version of the legislation originally conceived by the previous Congress-led UPA government, is now being branded as an “anti-farmer” and “anti-poor” piece of work designed to please corporate houses. Whatever the government’s explanation for the changes sought to be made to the earlier land legislation, the sense of the farmers and the rural poor is that they are being short-changed to please the industry lobby. If the Congress is able to channel some of this resentment into its own fight against the Modi government, it could well mark the beginning of a reversal in the party’s fortunes.
If Mr. Gandhi hogged the limelight at the rally, it was on account of his having just returned from a long “leave of absence” from the political arena. Party president Sonia Gandhi was very much at the heart of the rally, letting the government know that the party would stand with the farmers on this issue. One of the worries for the old guard in the Congress is >whether a greater role for Mr. Gandhi would perforce mean a reduced role for Ms. Gandhi. That Rahul was joined by Ms. Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must have been a matter of some comfort to those leaders who have been arguing that Ms. Gandhi should continue to head the party for some more time. Mr. Gandhi, who had at times given the impression that he was a reluctant politician, dispelled any misgivings his supporters might have had about his ill-timed absence. With a frontal attack on Prime Minister Modi, he made it clear that the hiatus was not in any sense a running away from the scene of the battle, but truly an attempt at reflection and reassessment of his and his party’s role in the context of the heavy defeat in last year’s Lok Sabha election and the subsequent Assembly elections in several States. If the Congress is to retrieve lost ground, then it must continue to take up livelihood issues such as the land legislation. Without a vigilant opposition, the government might never get a chance to rectify its mistakes. The Modi government’s land legislation might end up as a big boost for the Congress in the opposition space, and for Mr. Gandhi within the Congress.